Energy Material Laboratory of Korea Institute of Energy Research (President, Kim Jong-nam) developed a photocatalytic material for hydrogen production and electrode material for supercapacitors by hybridizing metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) and various other materials. The two study results were published in Scientific Reports, a sister journal of Nature and selected as the 100 most downloaded papers from the journal in 2019.

(Development of a photocatalytic material for hydrogen production) The research team developed new visible-light-active photocatalysts for hydrogen production by hybridizing three-dimensional Ti-MOFs and two-dimensional ZnCr-LDH nanosheets for the first time in the world and increased the hydrogen generation efficiency by 3 times compared to the conventional Ti-MOF based photocatalysts.

(Development of a supercapacitor electrode by using rice husks) A new electrode material for supercapacitors was developed by hybridizing cheap, easily accessible, and highly porous rice husks and well-ordered MOF. The research team also demonstrated the possibility of producing carbonaceous materials by growing two different-sized bimetallic Co/Mn-MOFs in the channels of pre-activated rice husks (RHs) in real-time for the first time in the world.